Residents of Bhopal love a pewter sky and soggy days
It is bucketing down. The City of Lakes is sloshed. The book lovers – should rainwater not seep through their roofs – cannot find a better time to reel off the pages of their chosen authors than such wet days when idleness seizes everyone. Wherever you look, your eyes strike at lush green trees. If rain plays havoc, it is ‘water, water everywhere….’ The British poet ST Coleridge limned a vivacious portrait of the ocean in The Ancient Mariner – through these three words.
Many journalists have used Coleridge’s magical words to describe floods – though the poet used these words to paint the ocean under the ‘bloody sun.’ A word truly reveals itself only when it is properly used. We, in Bhopal, may say wet, wet and wet... and wait there is more in store. Soggy banks of the lakes, rain-swept pot-holed roads strewn with leaves beaten off the trees by the steady wind and squelchy hillocks are associated with July.
Occasionally, a broad sheet of lightning opens the horizon in its whole width. It darts like a snake over the dark green woods, sketching a dividing line between the wavy Upper Lake and the dark horizon. The residents of Bhopal yelp with delight, because they enjoy a sodden July and a pewter sky. The elderly people remember their childhood. They narrate the sensation of a wet fringe pricking with salt, into their face and mouth.
Many of them enjoyed seeing green through windows and some under an umbrella. Many ghost rivers rise and overflow. They inundate farmlands, roads, and cause water-logging. You can hear a cuckoo warble from bushes, a Bulbul chirp from behind leaves, white-ringed Shama twitter and an oriental magpie sing in praise of clouds. There are many great writings about rain – almost a deluge you might think. Robert Frost’s A Line-storm Song portrays the elegance of rain:
The line-storm clouds fly tattered
and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz
stones lift
And the hoof-prints vanish away….
What Mark Twain wrote about rain is really enjoyable: "The rain is famous for falling on the just and unjust alike, but if I had the management of such affairs I would rain softly and sweetly on the just, but if I caught a sample of the unjust outdoors I would drown him.”
July saw birth of many authors
Many authors were born this wet month. The name that first occurs to us is that of the German novelist, poet and painter Hermann Hess who was born on July 2, 1877. One of his notable works is Siddhartha. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1950. Hess had visited India; and the country’s mysticism greatly impacted his writings. Another writer of the 20th century Franz Kafka, who was born in Prague on July 3, 1883, wrote in German language.
His novel, Metamorphosis, shook the world. French author Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871. His ‘A la Recherche du Temps Perdu’ (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time) is a great work of the 20th century. Nobel laureate and Canadian novelist Alice Munro was born on July 10, 1931. She won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2013. She wrote ‘Housewife Finds Time to Write Short Stories.’
Munro says the unsayable with forthrightness. Then who can forget author Earnest Hemingway? He was born on July 21, 1899 and died on July 2, 1961. Known for his crisp writing, his style influenced many 20th century writers. French author Alexander Dumas was born on July 24. His portrayal of rain in The Three Musketeers is vivant: “In front of them the Lys rolled its waters like a river of molten tin, while on the other side was a black mass of trees, profiled on a stormy sky invaded by large coppery clouds which created a sort of twilight amid the night.”
His other important work is The Count of Monte Cristo. Irish playwright and Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw was born on July 26, 1856. He wrote 60 plays, including Man and Superman, Pygmalion, Candida, and Saint Joan. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1925.
Those who have read Wuthering Heights know the British author Emily Bronte was born on July 30, 1818. The July days are Wuthering over the lakes in the city. Bring it out from your cupboard and go through this classic work again. Those who have laid their hands on potter’s wheel and know Harry must be aware that the author of Harry Potter JK Rowling was born on July 31, 1965.
